


begin again

by Wildehack (tyleet)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Canon typical darkness, Gen, M/M, background Jon/Elias, body hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 18:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20569034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: Elias dies.Elias wakes up.





	begin again

**Author's Note:**

> Another reposted tumblr ficlet. Anon asked for: "Peter/Elias + failed Watcher's Crown and/or the Institute is destroyed."

The Watcher’s Crown fails, the Magnus Institute burns to the ground, and Elias’s own Archivist slides a knife into Elias’s heart.   
  
It's all incredibly disappointing.   
  
“We were so close,” Elias gets out, gripping instinctively at everything of Jon he can touch: Jon’s neck, Jon’s ribs, the silvery certainty in Jon’s mind that Jon has somehow been keeping back from him, the sure knowledge that it was worth the sacrifice of all that they are and could be, just to save a few pitiful souls of their suffering. His only consolation is that Jon’s hand on the knife is trembling, his eyes are clear and open but red-rimmed, and he is thinking that he loves Elias every bit as much as he hates him. They both know this betrayal will ruin Jon just as surely as it is ruining Elias.   
  
“Go to hell,” Jon says on a choke, the tears spilling over, and the world is sparking black at the corners.   
  
“Meet you there,” Elias breathes, and then he dies in his Archivist’s arms. 

When Elias wakes up, he’s somewhere outdoors and unfamiliar. A public park, maybe, judging by the background noises. There’s a hard bench under his body, but something soft and warm under his head. There’s also a hand in his hair.   
  
“Where are we?” he asks, not opening his eyes just yet. His voice is lighter than he’s used to.   
  
“Oh,” a familiar voice says, humming a little. “America, I think.”   
  
Elias makes a face and opens his eyes. Peter is sitting above him, of course, idly stroking Elias’s hair back behind his ear.   
  
“Don’t blame _me_,” Peter says amiably. “This is the first body I could get you to take to. I did try a nice Oxford boy.”   
  
Elias rolls his eyes. “So instead you found me–-” he pauses to consider, take stock of himself. “Elizabeth Waters, twenty-seven. Bostonian. A graduate student on her way home from her studies at Cambridge. Really?” 

Peter shrugs. “She was sat next to me on the flight.” 

Elias makes a soft irritated sound in his throat, and tries to sit up. He’s still woozy from the transfer, so Peter has to help him, carefully supporting his waist. He ends up with his head on Peter’s shoulder, leaning on him for support. “Well,” he says, giving a dismissive look down at himself–-he appears to be very slight, with freckles on his arms and long dyed-pink hair he’ll be shearing off immediately. “I suppose I should thank you.”   
  
“Suppose you should,” Peter says evenly, and Elias becomes aware of the fact that Peter had pried Elias’s body out of Jon’s arms, that only the urgency of his task had stopped him from leaving Jon for dead as well.   
  
Elias rubs a hand over his eyes, tired. “That was a rather spectacular failure, wasn’t it?”   
  
Peter hums. “I almost didn’t get to you in time,” he says. “Could have been curtains for you.”   
  
“It could have been,” Elias says seriously. “I’m glad it wasn’t.”   
  
Peter presses a hard kiss to the side of Elias’s head. “So,” he says, clearing his throat. “What do I call you? Liz? Lizzy?”   
  
“Elizabeth,” Elias says, knowing it will take him a while to get used to it. It always does.   
  
“Mm,” Peter says, and takes Elias’s head in his hands, turning slightly on the bench so he can kiss her.   
  
Elias lets him kiss her, welcoming anything familiar. It occurs to her sometime after Peter licks her mouth open that she’s going to have to begin again from scratch, that there are two hundred more years of work ahead of her before she can rest. She shudders, suddenly bone-tired, and Peter breaks it off, lets her breathe.   
  
“It’ll be all right,” he says, storm-blue eyes intent on hers, his calloused hands catching on the skin of her neck, and because he says it kindly Elias rolls her eyes and kisses him again, more active this time.  
  
It will be all right, she decides. She can be patient again.   
  
Peter’s thinking about marrying her again, or at the very least carrying her off to a holiday, somewhere warm with a big bed and enough time to get her used to her new body again. Elizabeth is thinking about letting herself be carried off. Just for a little while. Just to regroup, gain back some strength.

“Thank you,” she says when they finally come up for air, letting just enough sincerity into her voice that he’ll know she means it. “For being here.”   
  
“Always,” Peter says, and he means it even though he’s lying, so she tucks her head into his neck and allows herself just a moment to feel very safe. 


End file.
